With a roomful of journalists and a live Webcast audience as his witnesses, Verizon CEO Dan Mead officially launched the Verizon Application Innovation Center in downtown San Francisco today.

"Innovation is at the very core of what Verizon does, and what we stand for," Mead said. "LTE has become one of the signature factors driving innovation."

Known as the App Wall, this first implementation of a 9-panel LCD touch-screen app store showcases apps from Verizon's VCast catalog.
Jessica Dolcourt/CNET

A sister site of the LTE Innovation Center that opened last month in Waltham, Mass., the application arm is essentially an office space for a relatively small group of Verizon employees, including engineers, to work with application developers and partner companies to think up new apps, services, and ventures to complement Verizon's LTE network and 4G-enabled devices.

This morning, the center's true work space was obscured by baristas making beverages to order from the communal kitchen, app and device demos staged in the main room and offices, and a conference table piled with catered bites.

Ordinarily, traditional office fixtures like desks and swivel chairs will be among the suite's more regular occupants, along with those Verizon employees and drop-in developers, who will use the center to troubleshoot and accelerate production.

CNET was on site this morning to tour the facility and take in the inventive demos. We even got a peek into a heavily reinforced strong room whose singular goal is to shut Verizon's network out. Take a look in our Verizon Application Innovation Center gallery.